Gritting her teeth, she planted her feet hard on the ground and fought back tears. Then, in one swift movement, she leaned out of the window again, reached under the sheet with her right hand, and pinned the note to his. Directly ahead, the window of the next building was dark, but still she Maggie could make out the black silhouette of Saundra Finkelstein. Hiding to the side of her window, Fink nodded cautiously. And for the third time since yesterday, under the watchful eye of four digital camcorders, six voice-activated microphones, two coded transmitters, and more than fifty thousand dollars worth of the best government military surveillance equipment, Maggie Caruso yanked the two-dollar rope and, under a cheap, used, damp sheet, passed a handwritten note to her next-door neighbor.
You can learn a lot about a man by recording the things he has in his bathroom. A toothbrush with frayed bristles... baking soda toothpaste... but no proof. You can learn even more than you want to know. Kneeling by the sink, I slide my arm through the rusted pipes and check the long-expired toiletries.
"What about the medicine cabinet?" Charlie asks, brushing past me and climbing on the edge of the tub.
"I've already looked at it.
The medicine cabinet door opens with a magnetic click. I raise my head. Charlie is reviewing its content.
"I told you…I already looked there.
"I know, it's just to check," he says, quickly examining the cache of brown prescription bottles. Lopressor for blood pressure, Glyburide for diabetes, Lipitor for cholesterol, Allopurinol for gout...
"Charlie, what are you doing?" "What do you think, Hawkeye?"
I want to know what medication he was taking. -So that?
"Just to see... I want to find out who this guy was, get into his brain, see what he's made of him..."
The speech goes on too long. I stare at him again. Charlie begins to quickly put the meds back into his place.
"Do you want to explain to me what you're really doing?" -I ask.
"See, you're smoking too many Twinkies," she says, with a forced laugh. I already told you, I'm looking for hers...
"You forgot your medication, right?"
-What...?
"The Mexiletine... you haven't been taking it."
He rolls his eyes like he's an angry teenager.
"Will you please not exaggerate?" This is not General Hospital...
"Damn it, I knew there was something that..." I hear a noise in the hallway and interrupt what he was going to say.
"Saved by the bell," Charlie whispers.
-What happen? Gillian asks from the doorway.
"Nothing," Charlie says.
We searched his father's medicine cabinet. Did you know he kept tampons in there?
"They are mine, Einstein.
"That's what I meant... that they're yours."
Dancing around me, Charlie comes out of the bathroom; but right now, my eyes are locked on Gillian as she walks down the hall.
"Watch out, you've got a little drool on your lip," Charlie whispers as he walks past me. I mean, not that I blame you, with all that hippie-girl voodoo she exudes I'm sweating too.
"We'll talk about it later," she murmured with a growl.
"I'm sure we will," he says. But if I were you, I'd forget about buying her a bra for now and concentrate on the problem at hand.
Around seven in the evening we still have the kitchen, the garage and the two closets in the hall.
"I'll take care of the kitchen," Gillian says. That leaves two possibilities. Charlie smiles at me. I look at him out of the corner of my eye. Only a jerk would choose the garage.
"Rock, paper, scissors," he challenges me. Two losses in a row and it's game over.
This time I smile and hide my hand behind my back.
-Rock-paper-scissors.
His stone breaks my scissors. -Rock-paper-scissors.
His stone tears my scissors to pieces again.
-Shit! I say, angry. "You're a pain in the ass with those."
pair of scissors...
I turn my scissors into a raised middle finger and head out to the garage.
Grinning from ear to ear, Charlie turns and walks off toward the hall closets.
As I'm about to turn into the garage, I turn, ready to throw him a double-or-nothing challenge. Charlie should be in the hall closets. Instead, I see him at the closed door at the end of the hall. Duckworth's bedroom. The only place we haven't been. It really shouldn't matter—Gillian has already told us that she's reviewed it—but I know my brother. I can sense the stealthy movement in his gait. He looks at the door like he has X-ray vision. After nine hours of recording this dead man's life, he wants to know what's inside that room.
-Where are you going? -I ask.
Charlie looks over her shoulder and his response is a sly arched brow. He quickly opens the door and disappears into Duckworth's bedroom. I don't move, aware of his hide-and-seek game. It worked when I was ten years old, but this time I won't get bogged down. I turn toward the garage and hear the bedroom door close behind me. I take three steps before stopping again. Who am I trying to fool? I start running towards the closed door.
"Charlie?" I whisper, knowing he won't answer me.
In fact, you can't hear anything. I look over my shoulder down the hall to make sure everything is in order. Trying not to make a sound, I turn the knob and walk into the room. The door closes and the lights are off, but thanks to cheap blinds protecting the windows, the room is bathed in dim light from outside.
"Pretty creepy, huh?" Charlie whispers. Welcome to the inner sanctum...
It takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dim light in the room, but when they do, it's clear why Gillian took it upon herself to search this room. Like the living room and study, Duckworth's bedroom has the same features: a single bed propped against a dirty white wall, an unpainted wooden nightstand with an old alarm clock, and to make sure that every object looks like it's been randomly selected, a Formica-topped almond chest of drawers that looks like it's been stolen from the back of a truck. But when I look more closely, I realize that there is something else in this room: a cream-colored bedspread softens the hardness of the bed, a horero with dark red eucalyptus leaves blooms above the chest of drawers, and, in one corner, a painting Mondrian style is leaning against the wall, waiting to be hung. This room started out as Duckworth's, but is now unquestionably Gillian's. So this is where she lives. I feel a pang of guilt in my stomach. This is still her private space.
"Come on, Charlie, let's get out of here...
"Yeah…no…you're absolutely right," he says. We're just trusting him with our lives. Why would we want to know anything about yours?
I try to grab his arm but, as always, he is faster than me.
"I'm serious, Charlie.
"Me too," he says, pulling away from me. He moves to the center of the room and checks the floor, the bed, and the rest of the furniture, looking for any clues. Suddenly, he stops, confused.
-¿What? ¿What happens?
-You tell me. ¿Where is Gillian's life?
-¿What are you talking about?
"Her life of hers, Ollie—clothes, photos, books, magazines—anything. Check out. Apart from the flowers and that painting on the floor, there is nothing else.
"Maybe she likes to keep things tidy."
"Maybe her," he says. Or maybe she...
At that moment, the sound of a door closing is heard. I turn and see that it's coming from the hallway. Still, we both know when we have abused her hospitality. Threw out
I glance at the alarm clock on the nightstand to check the time, and I jerk my head up. It is not an alarm clock. It's an old...
"It's an eight-track recorder!" Charlie exclaims excitedly. But as he leans in to get a better look through the darkness, he notices that the opening that usually houses the eight clues appears larger than normal. The silver plastic around the edges is chipped. As if someone had tried to open or enlarge it. Charlie, overcome with curiosity, approaches the device and squats in front of it.
"Son of a bitch," he mutters.
"And now what happens?"
I move closer and try to see something through the gloom that surrounds us. Charlie points out the eight clues.
"I don't understand," I tell him.
"Not the eight tracks, Ollie. Here... — he Points again. But what he is pointing at is not the recorder. It's the nightstand. Check the dust," he says.
I tilt my head and see the thick layer of dust covering the surface of the nightstand.
"It's so perfect you don't even know it," Charlie says. Like no one has put anything on it, or touched it for months, even though it's next to his bed.
He turns and stares at me. -What?
"You tell me, Ollie. How is it possible that she doesn't...?
"What is this, the search for the panties?" a female voice asks behind us.
Charlie turns to look at Gillian.
She turns on the lights, forcing us to squint to adjust to the sudden brightness.
"¿What are you doing in my room?"
"Oh, is that your room?" Charlie asks. We were just... admiring this awesome eight-track recorder.
He jerks his thumb over her shoulder, but she doesn't bother to look. Her dark eyes fix on him and don't let go. She is standing by the door with her arms crossed over her chest. I don't blame her. We shouldn't have been going through her stuff.
"Listen, I'm really sorry," I say. I promise you we haven't touched anything. Staring at me now, he puts me through exactly the same test. But unlike Charlie, I don't lie, babble, or condescend. I tell him the whole truth and I hope that's enough. I…I just wanted to know more about you," I add.
Perfect, Charlie smiles.
He thinks I'm acting but, in many ways, it's the most honest thing I've said all day. With the whole world after us, Gillian is the only person who has offered us her help. As she looks me up and down, her arms are still crossed over her chest. The free spirit has disappeared. And then... suddenly... she appears again.
"It's very cool, isn't it?" she asks, as her shoulders relax.
I thank him with a smile. Wary of her sudden show of kindness, Charlie looks around her as if she's talking to someone else.
"The eight-track recorder," she explains, walking over to the nightstand.
He pushes my brother to the side and sits on the bed next to me. He leans back, then forward, then back some more.
"Wait till you see what my father did," she says, calling me first name. He hits the "Pause" button.
He has recovered the singing smile that he had before. Beside her, however, Charlie points down, where Gillian's bare toes are balled into fists against the carpet.
"You see it?" Charlie frowns with that told-you-so expression he usually reserves for Beth. But we both know Gillian isn't Beth.
Gillian turns on the set and leans back on her hands.
"She just hit the 'Pause' button," she repeats.
Following her instructions, she reached out and hit the "Pause" button. The ancient device starts up with a mechanical hum. It's a familiar sound…and when she presses the button, a plastic CD tray—complete with a shiny compact disc—slides out of the opening where one would normally place the eight-track slipcase.
"It's cool, huh?" Gillian says.
"Where did you say you were from?" Charlie asks.
-Sorry?
-Where are you from? Where did you grow up?
"Here," Gillian says. Close to Miami.
"Wow, that's so weird," Charlie says. Because when you said "very cool" a moment ago, I swear I noticed a slight New York accent.
Obviously amused, Gillian shakes her head, but she doesn't take her eyes off my brother.
"No, just Florida," she croons casually. It's the best way to deal with Charlie... by not confronting him at all. Gillian turns to me and the set.
"Take a look at the record," she tells me.
I lean down and pick it up with one finger: The Complete Speeches of Adlai E. Stevenson.
"Your father did this?"
—That's what I'm telling you, after leaving Disney he had a lot of free time... he used to...
"And when did you move back into this house?" Charlie interrupts.
-As you say? Gillian asks.
If she's upset, she doesn't show it.
"Your father died six months ago, when did you move here?"
With a mischievous smile, Gillian jumps out of bed and goes to the foot of the mattress.
"You see it?" Charlie glares at me. "It's the same trick I use on you." Distance to avoid confrontation.
"I don't know," Gillian starts to say. I guess about a month ago...it's hard to say. She took a while to fill out all the paperwork…and then move my stuff here…" She turns to the window, but she's never nervous. I strain my ears to catch any hint of New York, but all I hear is her brief accent from Floooorida. It's still not easy for me to sleep in her old bed, so I curl up on the couch most nights," she adds, still looking at Charlie. Of course the mortgage is paid off, so I have no reason to complain.
"What about work?" Charlie asks. Do you keep working?
"Do I look like the beneficiary of some fund?" Him," he jokes. Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at the Waterbed. "Waterbed?"
"It's a club on Washington Avenue. Velvet ropes, guys looking for supermodels who will never show up... the same old sad story.
"Let me guess: you're a waitress and you're wearing a very tight black T-shirt."
"Charlie..." she scolded him.
She shrugged lightly.
"Do you really think I'm that type?" I'm a manager, handsome. Gillian tries to be nice, but Charlie doesn't take the bait. The good thing is that it leaves me the day off to paint, which is the best way to relax," she adds. Paint? I examine the canvas leaning against the wall in the corner of the room and look for the signature. G.D. Gillian Duckworth.
"So that painting is yours," I say. She was wondering if...
"Did you paint that?" Charlie asks, not hiding her skepticism. "Why are you surprised?" -Question Gillian.
"He's not surprised," I say, trying to keep things from getting worse. It's just that she doesn't like competition. Pointing to Charlie, I add. She guesses who was attending Fine Arts school...and still an aspiring musician.
-Really? Gillian exclaims. In other words, we are both artists.
-Yes. We're both artists," Charlie says bored. A moment later he studies Gillian's fingers; if I had to bet she'd say she's trying to check if she has paint chips under her fingernails. Have you ever sold any of your paintings? - She asks.
"Only friends," she says softly. Although I'm trying to get into some gallery...
—Have you ever sold one of your songs? I ask Charlie. I will not allow it to continue down that path. Besides, beyond anything else my brother's fertile imaginations can produce, Gillian is allowing us to search the entire house. Naturally, Charlie can't stop looking at the layer of dust on the nightstand.
"Did I say something wrong?" Gillian asks.
"No, you've been great," Charlie says and heads for the door.
-Where are you going? I ask him.
"I'm going back to work," he replies. I have to check a closet.